Citrina's Piplup Line* Collection: 2026 Page Completion Count: 1

[citriina]

2025 year in review

Just like last year, here is a summary of stats from the past year regarding my Piplup collection. Going back and rereading through progress from years past always makes me appreciate what I’ve accomplished, and I love reliving those collection memories as well.

On January 1st, 2025, I had started out with 706 unique prints, not including errors and signatures. Over the past year, I was able to add 195 additional cards to the binder, for a total of 901 cards currently collected and safely in their forever home.

In January, I completed my first 100% with the addition of the Legendary Clash Random GX Starter Deck Blastoise & Piplup GX non-holo in Traditional Chinese. Seeing a progress bar at 100% helped set the tone for the rest of the year (even though they added more prints later on).

February brought an extra exciting addition- the 2013 Korean League Zone Empoleon promo! This was a card I had considered in the unfindable territory, so I knew I had to snap it off as soon as I saw a copy go up.

The 2012 Korean League Zone Empoleon promo wasn’t far behind, as a copy popped up in July too! Seeing them both together after years of hunting just makes me so happy.

July really was the month of unfindables this past year, because I was also able to acquire the French POP series 9 cosmos blister promo as well! POP 9 wasn’t ever released in packs in French, and instead, the blisters had English packs with French cosmos promos, making this one an especially rare find. Shoutout to my friends for keeping an eye out for me and eventually finding and middlemanning this copy!

That’s not even all in July- I also found not one, but two more Polish cards one after another. Absolutely wild luck this past summer for sure!

In October, I rebuilt my spreadsheet tracker from the ground up! It was a lot of work, but definitely worth it for me.

The release of Inferno X, and then later Phantasmal Flames, added over 100 new cards to my collection scope, a beautiful steel-type Empoleon ex, a gorgeous Piplup AR, and Dawn’s very first named trainer cards, including her very own SIR! With those additions, I also got a second 16-slot binder, splitting up the collection into DP Base-Crown Zenith (Piplup zipper pull), and then Phantasmal Flames onward (Dawn zipper pull).

Finally, December might be last, but it was certainly not least. I completed the first page of my Volume 1 binder with the addition of Portuguese DP Base Piplup!

Not only that, but I also received an extremely thoughtful Christmas gift from my mother to hit 100% Simplified Chinese with the addition of the gift box set Akari’s Pikachu.

If you got this far, thank you for reading! I look forward to continuing work on this collection this upcoming year as well, and seeing everyone else’s updates here besides. Wishing everyone a wonderful 2026, and happy collecting everyone!

[Ratequaza]

Love the zippers of your binders!

[citriina]

Thank you so much! I really love mini perlers and jewelery making, and those just happened to line up well for me to make matching zipper pulls! I didn’t want to do anything permanent to the binders in case I change my mind about the order of contents later on, so this was my solution to that!

[citriina]

This update will be a consolidation of a few different packages over the last month!

First, this beautiful Korean Dawn SR, along with a bunch of other goodies that the seller included for me! I was especially excited about the Lillie’s Ribombee, as I collect Lillie as well when I see them pop up inexpensively.

Next, this Korean package contains a few exciting items, including some DP-era difficult-to-find trainers, and the Start Deck 100 Empoleon!

I was also able to pick up both the Korean and Japanese SIR Dawns! I’m trying to pick these up when I see these at decent prices, and I’m so glad these are now in hand. The differences between English print quality, Japanese texturing, and Korean card stock are beautiful to behold in person.

The next package contains a few Thai set cards, as well as one of the most elusive randomized deck prints: the SCE Piplup. I’m just missing Indonesian SCE now for the Brilliant Stars artwork!

And finally, the crown jewel of this update and one of my ultimate grail cards: Red Flash XY8 Unlimited Empoleon.

I’ve been looking for this card for years, alerts set up on every platform, checking each site multiple times a day every day, the whole nine yards. I saw an unlimited listing on TCGPlayer pop up, but with no photo, I don’t tend to take that gamble, as every other time, they’ve been mislabeled. Somehow, @dylancollectsglaceon was able to find the seller’s Instagram and ask for a photo, and miraculously this was actually an unlimited copy. I quickly purchased it, and here we are! Huge shoutout to Dylan and his detective work, because I definitely would never have taken the gamble otherwise.

With a few more prints discovered, this brings the total goal to 1159, of which I have 935 so far, or 80.67%. I’ve got more exciting things on order for the coming months, and I can’t wait to share once I have them in hand. Thank you for reading if you made it this far, and happy collecting!

[circlehunter]

XY8 IS HUUUUUUUUUGE

Congratulations on the grail! Those Dawn SIRs are also fantastic.

[citriina]

Thank you so much!! It’s still hard to believe I own this now after so long hunting. Definitely super stoked about the new pickups for sure!

[eeveeteam]

Tcgplayer is the last place I’d expect to find a rare unlimited card. Nice find

[citriina]

I couldn’t believe it myself until it showed up, but I’m definitely not complaining! It always seems like the most elusive cards pop up in places we least expect them

[niece]

Hey hey ! Congratulations!

[citriina]

Thank you so much! One more unfindable crossed off the list!

[R0bzz]

Which binder do you use with blue pages?

[citriina]

TopDeck’s 1000-card portfolio in blue! I also have their blue 9-pocket as well, and I love the quality. They have other colors with pages that match too, which are also very nice.

[Ratequaza]

@citriina

And finally, the crown jewel of this update and one of my ultimate grail cards: Red Flash XY8 Unlimited Empoleon.

Amazing, congratulations on finally getting it!

[R0bzz]

Thank you. There are surprisingly less options for colored pages out there.

[Quuador]

Congrats on all the recent pickups, and especially big congrats on the unlimited XY8! And 80%+ is also very nice, keep it up.

@citriina

It always seems like the most elusive cards pop up in places we least expect them

Sometimes this is very true. Kinda reminds me of when I found my Polish RH Pikachu on a local Dutch marketplace (marktplaats for our fellow Dutch(wo)men). Funny enough, it’s still the only time I purchased Pokémon cards from marktplaats (also bought a Jumbo Japanese Captain Pikachu alongside that Polish card), even after 10+ years of collecting.

Greetz,
Quuador

[mrbubbles]

Superb update! Much congratulations @citriina . XY8 unlimited is a huge huge deal so congratulations on being able to find the card finally. Really happy for you. Also, congratulations on crossing 80% which sees you really speed running through this goal. Excited and looking forward to your next update. Thanks for sharing.

Cheers!

[joponnes]

I love these moments when a huge pile of nerds gathers to celebrate a missing stamp, but some unlimited japanese cards really deserve it and this is one of them so massive congrats from this member of that pile!

[citriina]

@Ratequaza

Amazing, congratulations on finally getting it!

Thank you so much! Your own XY8 journey has been super inspiring!

@Quuador

Congrats on all the recent pickups, and especially big congrats on the unlimited XY8! And 80%+ is also very nice, keep it up.

I appreciate that, thank you! And that’s so interesting about your Polish reverse- a very similar thing happened to me with my Polish Piplup (non-holo), where I found a copy on Mercari US for whatever reason. Sometimes the cards just find you, for sure.

@mrbubbles

XY8 unlimited is a huge huge deal so congratulations on being able to find the card finally. Really happy for you. Also, congratulations on crossing 80% which sees you really speed running through this goal. Excited and looking forward to your next update. Thanks for sharing.

Thank you, Mr. Bubbles! I’ve learned so much and connected with so many people over the years through this collection, and although I mostly have larger purchases needed now as opposed to the cheaper bulk before, I’m very happy with the progress I’ve made. Sometimes it can be easy to focus on the empty slots, but that just motivates me more to strive for completion (and enjoy the journey, of course)! That means so much, especially from you!

@joponnes

I love these moments when a huge pile of nerds gathers to celebrate a missing stamp, but some unlimited japanese cards really deserve it and this is one of them so massive congrats from this member of that pile!

Very well said I appreciate that, thank you! One of my favorite parts of species collecting specifically is celebrating very niche cardboard with others who also appreciate very niche cardboard

[dylancollectsglaceon]

Yay!! I’m so happy it worked out!

[citriina]

Back again with another update! My partner and I have had a CardTrader order going since December, and it was finally time to get it shipped our way.

This was my portion of the package:

Included are some fun pickups and odds and ends. Still chipping away at non-English Phantasmal Flames has kept me pretty busy, but I also was happy to find some older cards I still needed too!

The group of cards from the Japanese Palkia Half deck are also Piplup cameos technically- Piplup’s head is the set symbol! No sane person would count them as cameo cards, but they make me giggle when I look at them in my binder, so naturally I need all of them.

These two unassuming cards might be my favorite pickups this go around! Italian POP series cards are incredibly difficult to find, and this was the first I’ve ever seen either for sale anywhere. The POP 8 Piplup completes that artset (English, German, Italian, Japanese), and I only have 3 more of the POP 6 prints to hunt down now.

Although this Indonesian SIR Dawn wasn’t part of the CT order, it did arrive today! I was happy to pick this up as my Dawn SIR of the month for February for super cheap. Still trying to pick off one print a month for these, but we’ll see how long that lasts.

Finally, a little bonus completed page from today’s pickups:

I’ve said it before, but one of my major goals for 2026 is filling in as many gaps in my binders as possible where I only have a few cards remaining. Completing pages is the name of the game, and I’m so happy to fill in this DP Base page with the final piece: the German Prinplup reverse.

As always, thank you for reading, and happy collecting!